Do you understand the concept of diplomacy?
The Law of Christ is that we love each other as He loved us. In Ephesians 4:15, the proper grammatical expression in English is about how you live, not just what you say. It means clinging to the truth of the gospel message, and you do it with compassion, sacrificial love. But that certainly includes the common English translation of “speaking the truth in love”.
Truth is a Person, the Person of Christ. He is the living the truth. This is a non-western concept. In the West, truth becomes a thing, an impersonal body of propositions and logic. Thanks to the influence of people like Plato and Aristotle, it becomes a separate deity of sorts to which all things are held accountable. It stands on its own, and you’ll find most non-believers reflexively try to measure the gospel against their conception of objective truth.
Indeed, I seldom use the term “truth” when referring to the gospel of Christ because it’s almost like speaking the wrong language. It carries all the wrong baggage and it comes across as arrogance. If I offer them intellectual content, they have an intellectual defense. If I offer them the love of Jesus, they can’t so easily brush it aside. It places me in a different place in their lives, giving me an opening to testify. I must be the gospel, the Law of Christ. It’s my duty to incarnate Him in the way I come across to everyone.
I can’t count how many times I saw some fool present their version of the gospel truth with such bitterness and hatred that I knew Satan was celebrating. Most of the people I’ve watched trying to use some cutesy little outline they learned in “soul winning class” came across totally without compassion because they were too focused on the verbal content and not trying to reach the heart of the listener.
What may not register to some writers is that same focus on content instead of compassion does come across wrong in how you write. You’ve heard it before: “They don’t care how much you know until they know how much you care.” If all you care about is getting the gospel facts laid out, you might as well be lying.
I’ve run across it on every forum and blog comment section, people who have their facts straight but the tone registers as bitter and hateful. Their justification is, “Well, it’s the truth!” No, it’s not, because you have made it into a lie. You aren’t living the gospel in sacrificial love.
Tell it in love.
